Follow by Email

Wednesday, 18 February 2015

Liberal Party of Canada: Since our role is to govern, why oppose?

One of the criticisms of the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC)
over the years, from both inside and outside the party, has been that the LPC,
in seeing itself as the “natural ruling party”, had grown complacent. The
narrative being built by Justin Trudeau is that those days are over: only hard work and direct appeals to the Canadian people will earn their trust. Nothing
can be taken for granted.

The Liberal Party of Canada's new look

Yet, in positioning the LPC as a “government in waiting”,
Mr. Trudeau has deferred to the policies of the Conservative party to such an
extent that, should the Liberals form the next government, we can expect little
more than a changing of the guard. In effect, Mr. Trudeau seems to believe that
Canadians want a different Conservative party to rule. The problem isn’t the
content, it’s the style. Give it a softer touch, and there should be a smooth
ride to power.

It will fail, and Stephen Harper will be elected to a
minority government. But more on that later.

First, some examples of the charade that is the new and improved
LPC.

Economic policy.
The Liberals have no economic platform. So
far, other than rejecting income splitting, Trudeau and his team have presented
no economic policies that differ from those of the Conservatives. Unlike the
NDP, the Liberals are terrified of even mentioning a scenario in which taxes
could be raised on large corporations, yet they are more than happy with new
spending areas, such as in infrastructure.

National security.
The Liberals support the new anti-terror bill. They say there are oversight
problems, but these can be fixed when they are in government. Uh, ok. No need
for any committee work, or tough questions in Parliament. Just elect us to
govern, as we have no interest in the lesser task of holding the present
government accountable. After all, we dare not face off with an electorate that is easily frightened.

Party policy. The
Liberals have promised open nominations, something that neither the NDP nor
Conservatives have used to “brand” their parties. This has not happened. Time
after time Justin Trudeau has made it clear that what he is building is a political
machine with one goal, and one goal only: to get elected. For now, it looks
like it’s working.

Social policy.
There is no wedge here. Canada does not have capital punishment or an abortion
law, and it allows gay marriage. It’s going to stay that way, so both the
Conservatives and the Liberals are skirmishing on the fringes, arguing over niqabs at citizenship ceremonies, as if these were high-stakes debates. They aren’t. Neither party will leave itself exposed here.

So where does that put us? With a Liberal “government in
waiting” that espouses essentially the same policies as the Conservatives, but
with fewer details. A significant
portion of the Canadian populous appears to be happy with this scenario.

The problem is that the hypocrisy within the leadership of
the LPC is even deeper than that found in the Conservatives, and it comes from
the almost pathological insistence that the LPC is entitled to govern. The
party claims to have left this notion behind, but there is no greater evidence
of this than the election of Justin Trudeau as leader. He is not qualified. If
he believed in a meritocratic system, he would resign.

But he doesn’t, and he won’t. Sadly, many Canadians are
content with this. They see him as suitable for the simple reason that he spent
part of his childhood at 24 Sussex, and that he has spent his life surrounded
by power and influence.

This, of course, is exactly the problem. It explains Trudeau’s
arbitrary behavior such as dumping half the Liberal caucus without warning, or bringing Eve Adams aboard. For the Conservatives, the rewards are ideological, whereas
for the Liberals the point is to use power as a kind of currency in order to achieve
what, in their view, should be the status quo all along, which is to form the
government.

They won't. As we get closer to the federal election, this reality
will become both more transparent and more fragile. And once Humpty Dumpty
falls, and the cracks emerge, no one will be able to put him together again,
because the LPC has no ideological underpinnings.

This is why Stephen Harper’s Conservatives will win another government.
The only question is: who will be the official opposition? Clearly, the Liberals
don’t want that job. They are unwilling even to work with the NDP to form a
coalition, despite all the palaver about respecting the wishes of Canadians.
That means that if the Liberals form the opposition we can look forward to another
Harper government, but with a less effective parliament than the one we have
now with Mulcair’s NDP. Brilliant.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Podcast: Notes From The Underground

In the podcast Notes From The Underground TE Wilson discusses historical and contemporary attitudes toward crime. Each episode features a one-on-one interview that explores a unique topic. Interviewees include authors, experts, and individuals with personal experiences of crime. These podcasts were originally broadcast through the facilities of Trent Radio in Peterborough, Canada.

Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel

Bicultural and transgender, detective Ernesto Sánchez seeks a missing Canadian woman on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Moving uneasily in a world where benign tourism co-exists with extreme violence, he becomes a pawn in a shadowy power-play between corrupt police and drug cartels. Forced to make hard choices – desperate, wounded, and friendless – Sánchez takes refuge in the lawless mountains of Oaxaca. And discovers his fate.

“Wilson’s Mezcalero is a real-pager turner…While the milieu of Wilson’s novel is reminiscent of the hard-boiled tradition, his creation of P.I. Ernesto Sánchez is original, and helps Wilson push the boundaries with respect to genre. Sánchez is a hard-hitting private eye, but Wilson also depicts him as struggling with many of the issues that transgender individuals typically face; in this manner, Wilson creates both a riveting mystery and timely story about navigating life as a gender nonconforming individual.”

“Mezcalero is a remarkable read, with sustained suspense, surprise explosions of poetry and violence, and some new answers to old questions...Wilson understands something about violence and gender that I have never encountered before: that women’s violence is perhaps the most feared. Sanchez’s womanly violence in his manly body is a mystery revealed, a truth told that we suspected all along. This is a profoundly feminist book. The women in the book are the power brokers, the activators of action; even the most oppressed empleada is a container of her own complete power. Mezcalero is deftly plotted, and deploys an acrobatic narrative that is, frankly, exhilarating. Sanchez has a lot to teach us. Wilson, too.”

Janette Platana, author of A Token of My Affliction (2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize; 2016 English Language Trilium Book Award finalist).

“T.E. Wilson’s Mezcalerois, as a novel, a tacit consequence of the author’s real-world work as a reporter/journalist in Mexico. His work is rich in essence, and rich in detail, of how widespread organized crime and corruption permeate Mexican society. Highly recommended. This is great, well-grounded fiction.”

Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia, Senior Research Scholar in Law and Economics, Columbia University, and President of the Citizens’ Action Institute (Instituto de Acción Ciudadana).

“T.E. Wilson has crafted a terrific, terrifying and yet sensationally witty portrait of modern Mexico. Detective Sánchez is irresistible. You won’t soon forget his journey through that unpredictable jungle that is Mexico today.”